Eyelash curler

An eyelash curler is a small clamp. Scissor-style finger loops close two curved jaws: a metal frame above and, below it, a bar faced with a rubber or silicone pad. Closed at the base of the upper lashes, the jaws press the hairs against the pad into an upward bend. The curler adds nothing to the lash; it changes only its angle, so that lashes that grow straight out or point down catch the light and look longer from the front. The bend is temporary, and mascara on top is what keeps it.

Its neighbours reach the same result by other means. A curling mascara holds a bend with its brush and its quick-setting film. A heated curler uses warmth to set the curl in fewer presses. A lash lift is a salon treatment that perms the lashes upward for weeks. The plain mechanical curler is the simplest of the four: it needs no power, no product and no appointment.

Fit matters most. The curve of the frame has to follow the curve of the eyelid: a frame too flat for a rounded lid misses the lashes at the corners, and one too curved for a wide, flat lid pinches in the middle and leaves the outer lashes straight. Makers now sell curlers labelled for particular eye shapes, among them almond, round, hooded and monolid, as well as ones sold as fitting every shape. If you can, hold the open curler against the eye before buying it: the frame should sit along the lash line with no gap at either end.

Then look at the opening and the pad. A wide opening reaches the roots without catching the lid. The pad should be smooth and springy, with no groove across it. For the short lashes at the inner and outer corners, a partial curler with a narrow jaw does what a full frame cannot. Heated curlers are made for lashes that will not hold a cold curl; follow the maker’s instructions for how long to hold one in place.

Curl before mascara, on clean, dry lashes: a coated lash sticks to the pad, and a lash that sticks can be pulled out when the jaws open. Look down into a mirror, so that the lashes rise away from the lid, then open the curler fully and slide it in until the frame sits at the roots, with no skin between the jaws. Squeeze gently and hold for a few seconds. Open, move halfway along the lashes and press again, more lightly; a last light press near the tips turns the bend into a curve rather than an angle.

Never pull the curler away while it is closed, and never pump it hard. A curl that drops by midday wants a curling or waterproof mascara on top, not a harder squeeze. The FDA’s safety advice for eye cosmetics includes two points that apply here: never apply them in a moving vehicle, and take care not to scratch the eye or the skin around it.^[1]

The pad does the work, and it wears out. Once it shows a groove or a crack, or has lost its spring, replace it; most of the curlers here come with a spare, and several makers sell refills made for their own models. The makers’ instructions are a fair guide: Sephora’s own-label curler, for one, tells its buyers to clean the pad after each use, leave it to dry, and replace it every two months or as soon as it shows wear. The FDA’s checklist for eye cosmetics asks that any instrument placed in the eye area be clean and that eye cosmetics not be shared, since another person’s bacteria may be hazardous to you; if the lids become irritated, stop, and see a doctor if the irritation persists.^[2]

The mechanical curler dates from the 1920s. The Kurlash, invented by Charles W. Stickel of Rochester, New York, went on sale in 1923, and by 1924 its first model had given way to one that its historian finds closely resembles the curlers sold today. A folding, purse-sized Kurlash followed in 1931, and in 1941 a redesign brought larger finger loops, better leverage, a wider opening and a new “cushion guard”. After the war, with its patents expired, close copies followed.^[3] By 1960 Maybelline sold an eyelash curler beside its mascaras and eyebrow tweezers,^[4] and in 1968 the British lash maker Eylure added one “similar to the one developed by Kurlash”.^[5]

Heat is the other line of descent. A patent granted in 1999 for a battery-powered curler, which sounded a tone when the lashes had been held long enough, listed heated predecessors back to an Australian patent of 1949, among them an American clamp of 1980 warmed by a battery pack. Its complaint about all of them was that the user had to hold the device on the lashes “for an indeterminate length of time”.^[6]

One curler in a museum is there because of who owned it. The Science Museum Group holds a metal curler made in Britain between 2010 and 2013, given by a young trans person after it was shown in the museum’s 2013 exhibition “What makes your gender?”, curated by fifteen young transgender people with the charity Gendered Intelligence, as an object of how a person expresses their gender.^[7] A tool bought to change how the eyes look had become, for the person who gave it, part of how they wanted to be seen.